There's a dire need for blood right now — but most gay men won't be able to donate.

Last night, 50 unsuspecting club-goers were executed inside of a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. As these innocent revelers attended Latin Night to celebrate Pride Month and have a good time, it's unimaginable that anyone could've foreseen that this lounge would become the landmark of the deadliest mass shooting in American history, and the most catastrophic act of violence against the LGBTQ community. It's tragedies like this that not only expose our deepest conceptualizations of evil, but challenge our worldview on how to effectively cope and battle society's most noxious elements. In America, the advised routine has become to react with outrage, express remorse, and then pray for the victims and their families.

Here, it has also become typical to react with disgust toward anyone who seemingly attempts to "politicize" the tragedy. This notion is predicated on the idea that the hallowed grounds of the deceased should not be used as a pedestal to elevate one's ideas on policy. There's one problem: the fact that the "right time" for these conversations is rarely ever investigated, especially as the incident fades in our collective minds. Also, it must be understood that "politicization" is not just an act of "I told you so" regarding past policy decisions that could've possibly prevented a heinous act but, in some cases, it's about what can be done to presently saves lives.

Right now, in the wake of this attack, there is an obvious and dire need for blood — but many gay men are currently unable to donate simply due to the fact that they are gay.

In 1983, as the AIDS epidemic reared its ugly head in America, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enacted a lifetime ban on gay men that prevented them from donating blood. It wasn't until recently, in December 2015, that the rule was changed from a lifetime ban, to a one-year waiting period from the date a man last had sex with another man. Basically, if a gay man went to a nightclub last night with his boyfriend/husband and witnessed him get shot, leaving him in critical condition in desperate need of blood, that man couldn't donate blood to help out his significant other unless they hadn't been intimate for an entire year.

However, even the new policy is problematic; the one-year period has been seen as arbitrary — "there's no medical reason to think that a one-year deferral makes a difference as opposed to a month-long deferral when the virus would show up in blood," Harvard law professor Glenn Cohen said in a JAMA article, as reported by Vox. The entire idea behind it was born out of a desperation created three decades ago by our lack of knowledge, yet it's still being touted despite the incredible scientific gains we have made as a society. Gone are the days when we viewed AIDS as a "gay man's" disease, as we know its transmission isn't narrowly confined to any one community. The idea that LGBTQ people must stand by in the face of this horrific tragedy that ultimately targeted their community is beyond ridiculous.

It's important to note that we are in Pride Month, a celebration created over 40 years ago, after the Stonewall riots in New York. And now, this month that is supposed to celebrate anti-LBGTQ violence, has been marred by a vicious and bigoted attack. While gun rights advocates argue that we can have the debate over gun control on another day, we can't leave this blood donation conversation to another hour or another minute. Change needs to occur now.